flynn will no longer be throwing his weight around. they aye used to say you're in like flynn. now it's in and out. jeanne moos, cnn, new york. >> does change that whole in like flynn thing, doesn't it. thanks for join us. "ac 360" stars right now. official answers to the question of what president trump knew about his national security adviser's vulnerability to russian black maim and when he knew it. also breaking news on how long he kept vice president pence in the dark about it. that and new questions about michael flynn's relationship with moscow and what the president knew about or whether he condoned it or why, knowing general flynn had lied about his phone call to the russian ambassador, the president waited three weeks before cutting him loose. questions about whether the republican-controlled congress will fully investigate and what all this says about the trump administration after less than one month in office. the only reaction the president has had so far saying the real story isn't all of that, it's

the leaks. the leaks about all that. first cnn's sara murray joins us. new information about when vice president pence found out about flynn. what are sources telling you? >> that's right, anderson. mike pence was out there publicly saying flynn did not discuss these sanctions with the russian ambassador. turns out even though the president knew for weeks that was not the case, that the department of justice was looking into flynn's contacts in the call, mike pence only knew for a couple days he found out on february 9th. this about why the president didn't cut his national security adviser loose sooner. >> the evolving and eroding level of trust as a result of this situation and a series of other questionable instances is what led the president to ask for general flynn's resignation. >> reporter: tonight the white house is doing damage control, trying to explain why president trump didn't fire national

security adviser michael flynn until last night. even though the white house revealed trump has known about flynn's calls with russia for weeks. it was said flynn misled officials about his communication with the russian ambassador and was potentially vulnerable to blackmail from russians. according to white house press secretary sean spicer the president was informed immediately. the loss of trust was too damaging to overcome. fallout sparked about a whiplash for administration officials. last week, the president told reporters he wasn't aware of reports that flynn had discussed russian sanctions before he took office. >> what do you make of reports that general flynn, the conversation with the russians about sanctions before you were sworn in? >> i don't know about it. i haven't seen it. what report is that? >> reporter: today spicer said the president meant he had not seen a "washington post" story on a matter but said the

president took immediate action after the justice department's warning. >> the president from day one, minute one, was unbelievably desis in asking for and demanding his white house counsel and their team review the situation. >> reporter: before trump assumed office spicer told reporters in mid-january the conversations between flynn and the russian ambassador only focused on scheduling a call between the two world leaders. >> they exchanged logistical information on how to initiate and schedule that call. that was it. plain and simple. >> reporter: today he said senior administration officials were misled. >> this was an act of trust. whether or not he actually misled the vice president was the issue. and that was ultimately what led to the president asking for and accepting the resignation of general flynn. that's it. pure and simple. >> reporter: as recently as monday evening counselor to the president kellyanne conway insisted flynn had the president's confidence. >> yes, general flynn does enjoy the full confidence of the president. >> reporter: today she struggled to explain his departure.

>> the fact is that general flynn continued in that position and was in the presidential daily briefings, was part of the leader calls as recently as yesterday. as time wore on, obviously the situation has become unsustainable. >> reporter: meanwhile, members of congress on both sides of the aisle still have questions. john cornyn, the senate's second ranking republican, and senator roy blunt, a member of the senate intelligence committee, both called for an investigation into ties between president trump and russia. and they want to see flynn testify. >> so the fbi has interviewed flynn about the call to the russian ambassador. what more is known about that? do we know when it took place and what flynn actually said? >> reporter: we do know it took place in the early days of the administration. these calls between flynn and the russian ambassador were taking place during the donald trump transition before he assumed office, before flynn officially became the national security adviser very early on is when the fbi set up these interviews of flynn and after that the department of justice

raised these warnings with the trump administration saying that flynn could potentially be blackmailed. so far sources say that flynn has cooperated with the fbi. >> so we don't know whether flynn lied to the fbi during those interviews or not. we don't know if he admitted what he talked about. >> right now we are hearing that flynn is cooperating with them, so presumably he's telling them the actual tale of what happened on these calls but we don't have a good indication. remember, flynn is the one who was misrepresenting these calls to senior administration officials including now the vice president. that was really the concern that put the president over the edge and caused him to cut flynn loose. >> right, but just so i'm clear because it's a confusing time line. if the fbi interviewed flynn soon after they took office and we don't know if flynn told the truth to the fbi or not, because later flynn then did not tell the truth to other people in the white house including to the vice president, so i guess as far as we know, do we know if he

told the truth then? he may be cooperating now with the fbi, but do we know about that? >> we were told he was cooperating essentially from the outside. we don't have any indication he didn't cooperate with the fbi. and remember, what he was misleading administration officials, this was before they came into the white house. mike pence being out there saying that flynn didn't discuss the sanctions and the president essentially out there saying he believed flynn, all of that was during the transition effort. now they're in the white house and it was after this "washington post" story came out on the issue on february 9th. that was the moment where mike pence began to realize he had been misled today, there were disskrep i cans between what flynn had told him and what flynned a said in phone calls with the russian ambassador, all of that came after the meetings or the interviews with the fbi sol, you know, we will see if anything else comes of these interviews. >> sara, in flynn's statement, his resignation, he claims that he was just -- and i don't want to -- i'm paraphrasing, but that

he was basically just really busy and in his rush he forgot about the details of the phone call when he was talking to the vice president. he's not admit heg lied, right? >> reporter: >> he's not, but he does appear to indicate he did talk about the russian sanctions with the russian ambassador which is something u.s. officials have told cnn. and i think this is why you're seeing so many officials on members of congress on the hill both republicans and democrats say we need more information about what exactly flynn talked about with his russian emissariries and what the interaction was like between donald trump's transition effort as well as the russians. that is one of the things we have not got an fair answer on. what exactly was discussed when it was discussed. like i said, we're hearing that flynn is cooperating with the fbi. what exactly that means going forward i think remains to be seen. >> sara murray, appreciate it. the fbi's investigation of michael flynn is not limited to the phone calls and what he said about them. it goes beyond that and beyond

flynn. pamela brown, what is the wider focus of the fbi investigation? >> reporter: the fbi counterintelligence divisions investigation of flynn's contacts with the russian government developed from this broader probe of ties between donald trump surrogates and the russians and an effort by u.s. investigators to better understand russian activities in the united states. law enforcement officials tell us that flynn was not, is not the target of the investigation. in the december calls that flynn had with russia's ambassador, we're told he didn't make any promises about russia sanctions and appeared to be trying to be vague during the phone call about the sanctions according to u.s. law enforcement and intelligence officials we've spoken to. now as we know he denied speaking about sanctions when it came to light. a month later the doj informed the white house flynn was withholding the truth about discussing sanctions. >> any idea what happened between the time the doj found

out about the calls and when the white house was alerted? >> we're trying to figure out why it was almost a month. some fbi and justice department officials reviewed transcripts of the calls and found the contents concerning and decided to brief top officials in the obama white house. then one person familiar with this matter says in the waning days of the obama administration the new acting attorney general sally yates discussed telling the white house with leaders in the intelligence community and they reached this agreement it should be done. when specifically sally yates found out about the contents of flynn's phone call is still unclear. we know michael flynn was interviewed by the fbi after president trump took office. so today sean spicer as you heard tried to pin the blame on the department of justice for not coming to the white house sooner. but that also begs the question why did it take the white house nearly three weeks after doj's warning for the white house to take action against flynn only after "the washington post" broke the news of doj's warning? >> pam brown, thanks very much.

more on what the republican controlled congress plans to do. the answer depend on which republican lawmaker you ask. a number of gop senators favor some kind of investigation, not clear whether that means full, formal open hearings. rand paul says it makes no sense to investigate fellow republicans. jason chaffetz, head of the house oversight commit see, says there's no need for hearings. the problem is taking care of itself meaning with flynn stepping down. congressman devin nunez, who chairs the house intelligence community, also declined to hold hearings. both lawmakers drawing fire from house democrats, no surprise, including steny hoyer, minority whip. we asked jason chaffetz and nunez to come on the program. they declined. i spoke to congressman hoyer. some of your republican colleagues think michael flynn's resignation resolves this matter. jason chaffetz saying the situation is taking care of itself. you disagree, right? >> absolutely. the there oes no way his resignation takes care of this

event. frankly mr. chaffetz nor mr. nunez would have thought that had this been mrs. clinton in the same position. absolutely positive of that. it is not enough to say okay the national security adviser has resigned. we have here a pattern, not just a single incident of failing to disclose to his superiors, at least that's our supposition, that's what they say, that it wasn't disclosed, that he had talked about an ongoing matter of sanctions, sanctioning behavior that was adverse to the united states of america. and in effect one could draw the conclusion because the russians did not respond to those sanctions that they had been assured that they would be alleviated in the future. now, i don't know that. i'm just speculating that's the fact, but it is a very critically important question. and it's a critically important question as not only what the national security adviser did but what is the relationship

between president-elect trump himself and russia and putin. >> the white house today said repeatedly, sean spicer said today repeatedly it was clear to everybody in the white house there was no legal issue with that michael flynn did, his resignation was a matter of trust. i don't understand, if there was no legal issue, if flynn did nothing allegedly illegal, why flynn would lie about it repeatedly to so many people in the white house including the vice president. is it clear to you that no law was broken? >> no, it's not clear to me. it's not clear to me this was the only conversation. it clearly is the conversation in focus now. but it is i think clear ly clea deserves investigation because frankly they knew about this three weeks before it became public. it was only when it became public that it will national security adviser's position was at risk. kellyanne conway just hours

before the resignation which spicer now says was asked of flynn and flynn of course says he decided to resign, we don't know which is the truth here, but i think there is great doubt as to whether something illegal was perpetrated or something was done that is contrary to the interest and the security of united states and shows a compromised position vis-a-vis one of our principal adversaries in the world, russia. >> would any investigation be able to whether in the house or the senate, would bit able to hear the phone intercepts between michael flynn and the russian ambassador? >> i would certainly hope so. even if it had to be in camera or in secret. plus the fact i think the transcript of the conversation ought to be made available certainly to the members of the congress who represent the american people and with

consideration that security was not breached that that transcript would be available to the american people so they could make their own judgment. >> finally, the white house says cat gorally, the president did not know in advance that flynn would have this conversation about sanctions. do you have 100% confidence in that? >> i do not. very frankly, president trump has said things not corroborated by facts. kellyanne conway may makelike alternative facts but senator moynihan said we're all entitled to our opinion but the facts are the facts and i'm not confident of that, i don't think the american people are confident of that, and if they are the facts i would think the president would want to make sure we set the record straight by having a full and fair investigation. >> appreciate your time. thank you.

>> thank you. >> matt lewis, paul begala, trump supporters kayleigh mcenany and jeffrey lord. let me start with you. so many moving parts to this. where do you see this going? >> a couple things happened today. one-a lot of republicans especially on the senate side by the end of the day did concede this needs to be looked at. >> house side not so much. >> not so much. on the senate side it looks like they're moving towards a serious investigation of all of the allegations of russian hacking in the election and with respect to people around trump who had ties to russia and obviously flynn will be at the center of that. >> what i don't understand is if the white house said today clearly they don't think flynn did anything wrong in making that call or calls in talking

about sanctions with the russian ambassador, if that is the case and flynn didn't think he did anything wrong, why is he lying to everybody in the white house? >> great question. this may be innocent. it was his right to talk to russian ambassador as incoming national security adviser. not unusual. but why did he deny it and lie to pence and to the white house press secretary and -- >> he said in the rush of everything being so busy i misremitted and basically forgot. >> i think the thing that's strange in that the intelligence community has said barack obama initiated these sanctions on december 29th. the entire russian system immediately said we will be doing something reciprocal in the next 24 hours. you had the foreign minister, putin's spokesperson, the foreign ministry spokesperson, all say we're going to do x, y, and z. in the period between that and

when putin decided not to do anything, michael flynn was talking to the russian ambassador. >> that's what trump tweeted vladimir putin for not doing anything. >> that suggests trump was very much involved paying attention to this. that's what originally attracted investigators to flynn. they said, wait a second, why did pew tip pull back on the sanctions, the response, that he and his people said he would publicly do? that put flynn in the crosshairs. >> made them look at the intercepts. we have the take a break. later, sean spicer's role in all of this and can he make a scandal going away by claiming the leaks are the real scandal? moms know their kids need love, encouragement and milk. with 8 grams of natural protein, and 8 other nutrients to provide balanced nutrition. moms know kids grow strong when they milk life.

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nesting doll. you open one up and there's another question. back the panel. paul begala, you've seen some white house scandals. what do you make of -- >> i've seen a lot of them, sadly. ph.d. in white house scandals. they gain velocity over time. jason chaffetz is right in that it's taking care of itself but not in the way he hopes. like a snowball going down a mountain. it's gaining force and velocity and mass. the white house has to get ahead of this. the problem is they vice president been forthcoming and that's hard to regain credibility when you've lost it in the first day of a scandal. but they have to. their big fear now, i guarantee, is no longer what did the president know and when, bad enough, what will general flynn do now. is he going to turn on them? he'll be called to testify, apparently, if these hill investigations are real. apparently the justice

department is looking into it. i think they are terribly worried now about what general flynn is going to say because the story is not flynn. it is trump and the russians. that's the story. it was the story of the election and the story of this presidency. his connections to russia are really important. >> matt, the white house says the story is the leaks. that's what the real story is. every white house -- you know, especially a new president gets up in arms about leaks. it's infuriating there are leaks for anybody in public office, yet also the white house itself leaks. >> i think both things can be true. people are entrusted with highly sensitive information. these could be career bureaucrats. obama holdovers. and some are leaking and i think it's a problem. that doesn't obviate the other problem, the bigger problem, the russia problem. the good news for donald trump is he's got a republican congress and senate. imagine if he didn't. what would be happening now? we could be on the verge of we won't even use the "i" word.

the bad news for donald trump as you were saying earlier is he doesn't have a natural constituency amongst politicians or conservative opinion leaders. he doesn't have natural loyalty. they're loyal to him -- he's a transactional, not a transformational, a transactional leader. they'll support donald trump as long as they think what they get from him is more than they give up for supporting him. there is a danger for donald trump that even his own party at some point could give up on him. >> i don't think that's the case. look, i think what matters are the trump voters who so far according to the cnn poll, 90% of republican voters are pleased at with this presidency. it's important to consider what donald trump went through when he received this information from sally yates on january 26th about michael flynn. sally yates, a politicized attorney general, an attorney general who would not even defend his executive order while working for the president of the united states, comes in with an intel officer and gives him this information. why trust a holdover from the obama administration over your

own national security adviser? president trump was trying to take care of this internally over the last 19 days, news broke in what we should be very concerned about of course are the actions of michael flynn. i don't dispute that. but why are we not outraged that the united states intelligence community is leaking selective information to the press to destroy a presidency and to hurt in the long run the united states interests? that is preposterous and there's no outrage over this. it's disproportionately aimed at donald trump for political reasons. >> doesn't stuff leak from the intelligence community all the time? i mean under democratic presidents and every president? >> not like this. i would suggest. >> really? >> let me get my reagan reference out of the way here. in 1981 president reagan lost his first national security adviser and the situation was that a japanese magazine paid a fee of $1,000 and interviewed nancy reagan, wanted to give her the money, he stepped in, didn't want her embarrassed or alienate the japanese, he took the money, put it in a safe. he moves the office, forgets.

the money is found in the safe. that launched an investigation, a justice department investigation, all of this, you know, not in public. someone from the justice department leaked the story, became a huge deal. he was cleared but reagan said, you know, too much has been made of this, i can't bring you back. ronald reagan wrote in his diary that he saw this as bureaucratic sabotage, quote/unquote. i have a column on this in "the new york daily news" tomorrow. it's posted online. saying the real target here was not -- >> you agree the leaks are the issue, not what flynn himself did. >> yes. >> complaining about leaks that's like jack the ripper complaining about -- he's only president in part because of leaks because of a foreign intelligence agency hacking the democratic party and the candidates -- opposition candidates campaign chairman and then leaking it. [ talking over each other ] there's more here, an explosive story in the washington freeb s

free beacon saying obama folks and people in the intelligence community were deliberately trying to sabotage -- >> no nefld thin evidence that . it's explosive but there are no details in that article about stories that are being placed. >> congressional investigation -- >> i'm saying bring it on. let's get all of this out. >> the thing about leaks is they are by definition true. this is someone who may -- it will hien between a whistle-blower and a leaker is sometimes hard to define. i do think we have to be very careful. look, it may be that some of these bureaucrats have committed a felony by leaking some of this stuff. but that does not obviate the actual story, which is about flynn for now and if donald trump is lucky -- >> i don't think it's ever -- it's an obscure law from i don't know how many hundreds of years ago so it's a pretty -- the white house could be right when they say that flynn didn't do anything wrong. again, my question is if he

didn't do anything wrong, why is he lying about it to so many people in the white house? >> or they could be right that he did talk about sanctions, he did make some kind of vague ashurps to the russians but that no prosecutor would actually, you know, prosecute a logan act violation because it's never -- >> again, what did the president know and when? did the president ask him to talk to the russian ambassador or was he briefed on it after? >> right now i think that's the most important thing, what did trump and other officials in the white house know about this. did they instruct flynn to say let's make a deal with the russians before we get in here? >> even if he did. >> what's the problem there? >> he's the ip coming president. >> now you have a situation where they essentially, if he did instruct him, you have a situation where the white house has covered that up. >> and the white house lied about it because president trump did not know about it in advance. >> might have been find if he said it and defended it and said it's not a violation of the logan act. >> coming up, multiple

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michael flynn being asked to resign is clearly not the end of the story. it adds more questions to what is a mountain of questions about the president's ties to russia from why trump has praised vladimir putin time and time again to how deep the ties would go, what they were made of and how much they may have influenced if at all the election. there's seemingly a giant russian knot waiting to untangled. chute has details. >> reporter: tonight national security adviser michael flynn's resignation is raise nug questions about the trump administration's ties to moscow. in particular, when flynn spoke with the russian ambassador about u.s. sanctions, was he acting on orders from higher up? >> did general flynn do it by himself? if not, who directed him to engain the russians? >> and did any direction go as high as the president himself? >> certainly begs the question

whether flynn was doing exactly whether the president wanted, whether with the president's knowledge, with his approval. >> reporter: today white house spokesman sean spicer said emphatically no. >> no, absolutely not. no, no, no. but that -- no. >> reporter: still the fbi is now leading multiple investigations of current and former trump advisers and ties to russia, including a yearlong investigation of former trump campaign chairman paul manafort and his alleged connections to pro-putin figures in ukraine and alleged meetings between former trump adviser carter paige and russian individuals under u.s. sanctions. manafort and paige have denied any wrongdoing. the fbi also continues to investigate a 35-page dossier compiled by a former british intelligence agent alleging russia has compromising personal and financial information about donald trump. cnn was first to report on friday the intelligence agencies have corroborated aspects of the dossier, specifically calls between russian officials and other russian nationals known by u.s. intelligence for sharing

information damaging to hillary clinton and helpful to donald trump. former obama adviser ben rhodes tweeting today, when campaign chairman and national security adviser resign over russia ties there is more. manafort and flynn had nothing in common except russia and trump. president trump for his part continues to make public statements seemingly defending vladimir putin, telling fox news he respects the russian leader earlier this month. >> putin's a killer. >> a lot of killers. a lot of killers. what, you think our country is so innocent? >> reporter: today the white house said the president is in fact tough on russia, even if the statements are coming from staff other than himself. >> his ambassador to the united nations, nikki haley, stood before the u.n. security council on her first day and strongly denounced the russian occupation of crimea. >> jim sciutto joins me now. there was another in a string of military provocations by russia today weeks into the administration. what's happened?

>> reporter: this is russia deploying a new more advanced cruise missile, one the u.s. sees as being a violation of an existing u.s./russian missile reduction treaty. there's that. you have a russian spy ship now sailing off the coast of delaware. and you had a u.s. destroyer in the u.s. black sea with several close calls from russian warplanes. multiple provp caocations. as yet, not a critical public statement from the president of these kinds of actions yet despite what sean spicer said you might hear from him, from nikki haley, haven't heard it from the president. >> joining us now, fareed zakaria and david gergen. david, you've worked in the white house for republicans and democrats. what to you make of what you are seeing and where this thing potentially goes? what are the questions you want answered?

>> i think this white house has unfortunately fed us so many misleading statements and lies over time it's difficult to know what to believe about their account of what happened. and clearly the question is out there whether flynn was freelancing it when he called five times on december 29th to the russian ambassador. it seems unlikely someone would call five times unless he were on a mission that was encouraged by the president or by somebody higher up in the white house. i think there's a very big question, anderson, when the white house did learn that the justice department, the fbi both concluded not only might there have been a violation of the law by flynn, this obscure law but importantly he was vulnerable to blackmail. why would they leave him in place and why having pinned their entire story now on we got rid of flynn bauecause he lied pence and pence is our vice president yet they themselves kept pence in the dark for two weeks when they knew in the

white house that he'd been lied to by flynn. it looks like they were trying to ride it out. only when the leaks came was the cover blown away and it was exposed that indeed flynn had been on the phone engaged in talks about sanctions. so there's a lot here that i think still has to be pinned down. i frankly think it's going to go to congressional investigations. and when those come there will be big questions about whether general flynn will be called to testify, whether he will testify, whether he'll invoke executive privilege. there's much more to come on this story. >> and for an administration which keeps labeling news it doesn't like fake news, time and time again the reporting turns out to be accurate and now we're seeing the results. it's only because of the reporting last night the story broke by "the washington post" that flynn then, you know, apparently the president asked for his resignation. >> absolutely. >> if that's what happened. fareed, how do you see this? >> i think that, you know, what's important to understand here is that not only do you

have the specific scandal of mike flynn doing all the things that he seems to have done and whether or not it was at p the president's behest, but as part of this larger pattern which is trump has had a policy that was without any question not just, you know, soft on russia but kind of almost bizarrely so. putin has had a series of goals over the last five or six years to weaken nato, to weaken the european union, so tarnish the legitimacy of western democracy, so argue that syria should be left to assad. all these issues trump during the campaign eventually sided with putin rather than the traditional policies of the united states, of west germany, britain, nato, european allies. trump had take an very bizarrely pro-russian stand on all these issues and nobody could quite figure out what was going on. this is as i've said trump is a guy who believes that the rest

of the world has always been outfoxing the united states, we've been too soft on all of them, except russia. >> and now you have provocative actions by russia as jim sciutto was reporting. >> now you have the russians clearly violating the treaty. the treaty they violated in testing this missile is a treaty signed by ronald reagan and gorbach gorbachev, 1987. it's been honored since then. one other time they tried something like this. russians seem to be pressing forward and now it seems to make some sense when you think about the fact that trump has been trying to reach out to the russians, has had these pro-russian positions and now we learn his national security adviser five times tried to contact the russian ambassador. >> david, the other thing i can't i can't understand, maybe there's no answer, if the white house believes as they said today at the press conference that flynn didn't do anything wrong by having these conversations with russia's ambassador, why did flynn lie about it repeatedly to sean

spicer, to mike pence, to other people allegedly in the administration? i mean, if he felt it was all above board and there was no problem, why lie about it? >> i think he lied about it for the same reason the white house kept silence once they were alerted by the justice department, they wanted to do it surreptitiously and didn't want it out in the open. flynn lied about it. who else knew he lied? there is a real possibility other people knew in the white house he had lied to pence. >> also the question -- also questions about who in the white house knows what. you have kellyanne conway who supposedly is a top adviser to the president coming forward i guess -- i'm forgetting the time line now if it was yesterday on msnbc saying flynn has the full confidence of the president, an hour later sean spicer is saying well, things are in flux, it's being evaluated and by that night flynn is being told to

resign. who knows what in the white house actually knows what's going on? the president could know something and the top advisers not know anything. >> there are more sectors of power -- >> one of these things, only the shadow knows. >> there are four, five significant centers of power in this white house. lots of chiefs and very few indians. >> fareed, david, thank you very much. the president tweets the story that leaks are happening and sean spicer agreeses in the perez briefing room. we disagree but we'll talk about thousand white house is trying to control the message next. microsoft and its partners are using smart traps to capture mosquitoes and sequence their dna to fight disease. there are over 100 million pieces of dna in every sample. with the microsoft cloud, we can analyze the data faster than ever before. if we can detect new viruses before they spread, we may someday prevent outbreaks

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as we reported, president

trump tweeted that the real story here, here meaning michael flynn being asked to resign, is people are leaking information. in the press briefing today sean spicer echoed that that is the real story. respectfully, we beg to differ. here's how the white house is trying to control the message. >> we have an issue where classified information, of which this would be shgt , is handled such a way, it is being given out. i understand it's a good story and it's your responsibility to write that. i think there's also a story here with the amount of leaks coming out of people entrusted with national security secrets and classified information are leaking it out. that's a real concern for this president. >> joining us now someone who knows a thing or two about crafting a message, president obama's white house communications director, now a cnn political commentator, jen osaki. jen, let's start off with you. what would your advice be? you were communications director in the obama white house. putting aside you're a democrat,

what do you see playing out here in the white house in terms of how they are crafting this message or miscrafting this message and what do you advise? >> oh, boy. i think one of the only things you have sometimes is your credibility, and the story here is not about leaks. sure they should investigate leaks internally if they want to. it's about what the president knew when. it's about who directed this. and it's about a long trend of questionable ties with the russian government. if i were them, i would say get out in front of this. call for an independent investigation. if you have nothing to hide, then be transparent about it. and you'd send a more clear message to the american people. >> jen, it's interesting because again you had kellyanne conway coming out saying one thing and on msnbc yesterday and an hour later sean spicer calling reporters into his office saying something else, you know, completely. it seemed like something else completely. >> well, i think they have a number of internal communications problems right

now clearly. the other challenge they have is they don't have a lot to sell. they don't have a clear agenda. they talk a lot about how it's very active and there's a lot of executive orders that have been put out. but the fact that the vast majority of those are toothless and the only one that's really significant is the one that was struck down by a court. so one of the challenges they had is also they're not driving a narrative, they're not driving an agenda forward, and that coupled with the challenge of this big controversy and potential scandal around russia makes it pretty hard to communicate from there. >> ryan, cheerily from what we heard from sean spicer and president trump's tweet this morning the white house would love to shift the focus to leaks, which are certainly nothing new in washington, although certainly, you know, cause for concern if it's coming from the national security establishment. do you see that as a winning strategy? >> certainly washington's always leaky. right now, this is a faucet that seems to be pouring out. for a variety of reasons.

there are people leaking because they have agendas. these are government officials with various agendas. and it is hard to always know what axes they're trying to grind. but this is a clash we knew was coming. trump's anti-media rhetoric coming up against the reality of investigative reporting. whether these sources have agendas or not, the most important point is what you said earlier, so far the information has been accurate, that we're not seeing the white house challenge the accuracy of these leaks. we're seeing them challenge the existence of the leaks. we're seeing trump loyalists call for prosecutions, for investigations. i thought it was notable spicer did not go that far today. he did not say there were going to be formal investigations into these leaks although we're hearing some on capitol hill already calling for that. >> jeffrey, i think back to when president trump was kind of mocking is the right term but sort of -- i don't know, putting the word intelligence in quotes, saying things about the intelligence community that were negative and a number of people were saying publicly you should be careful about going after the

intelligence community as president of the united states before you're even in office because they can get you back pretty easily. i'm wondering if part of the leaks we're seeing -- again, i don't know if it's coming from the intelligence community or not -- is in reaction to some of the things the president himself had said. >> it is entirely possible. i think there are two things at work here. one, the bureaucracy at large, a lot of people at the federal government bureaucracy don't like donald trump. they belong to unions. they're just opposed. that's number one. ronald reagan used to call it bureaucratic sabotage. could he have -- >> said everybody at the cia voted for him, most people voted for him. >> i'm sure there's one or two. the reason that jen -- she was fabulous in her job. you just saw her do it right there. is framing what the real issue is. it is up to the white house to frame that issue.

their message, a good one, is about bureaucratic sabotage as reagan called it and leaks. that's not a good thing. >> isn't it honorable to make sure the country knows what mike flynn was doing? his standard and the standards of the new yo"new york times" o world, weren't these leaks newsworthy? >> i'm not criticizing the press for pub lealishing the leaks. i'm criticizing the leakers. >> there were plenty of leaks from the obama administration. i worked in the state department -- >> by the way, your white house went after a leaker, more harshly than prior administrations.

>> that is true, and we can discuss that as well. but listen, i think that's a slightly different circumstance, but i will say, i worked in the state department for two years the people who serve in the agencies are not political at all. they're trying to protect the institutions, and that's what we're seeing here. just had america uncovered. what rural americans are saying and how their vote shaped the country. (vo) this is not a video game.

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c well, the first 26 days of the trump administration have been rocky at best. the broad strokes are registering. martin savage spoke with trump supporters in missouri. here's what they told him. >> reporter: annie donovan loves her job. >> taking care of the babies. the baby pigs. >> reporter: it's called farrowing. and if you knew that, you're probably a trump supporter. if you didn't, you're probably not. it's an example of how life is different in rural america, and it's the differences that shed light on why voters in small towns are so big on trump. here in mercer county, missouri, population just 3,500, he got 85% of the vote. you think people who say the

east coast look at america differently than you do? >> yeah, i don't know how they see it, but i think they look at it different than we do. >> reporter: and what makes you think that? >> just what you see on tv, being out there, being with them and around them. >> they're raised different. we're raised family, you know, home, your country. you know, your community. >> reporter: you might think rural life is simpler. these folks say think again. >> a farmer, but what that's that? 15, 16 hours a day, and that's what i work, and i'm 67 years owed. >> reporter: many work multiple jobs. >> we come up with the idea of having a bar and grill. >> reporter: bill owns a restaurant, a liquor store and

sells fe sells fireworks and guns. >> hillary would have sold even more. trump is bad for a gun shop. >> reporter: because rural voters see trump as pro-gun, meaning they don't have to stock up fearing gun control. they also want trump to cut regulations, taxes and people's dependence on government. here, they rely on each other, not washington. >> it doesn't matter what your political beliefs are, if somebody needed help, we're all there to help. >> reporter: there's another trump trait rural americans love, something his detractors often criticize. >> i tell you i'm going to do something, and i'll do it. >> yeah. >> reporter: people say what they're going to do and then they do what they say. and so far they hike everything president trump's said and done, from his cabinet to supreme court nominee to promises of dismantling obamacare, the wall and the travel ban, which they see as anti-terror, not

anti-muslim. >> i don't care where they ban them from. if they're sending people over here that's doing stuff hilike that, then ban them. >> you checked in with some of the people about michael flynn's resignation, what did they say? >> i spoke to annie, and she blames michael flynn. she sees this as a man who lied to the administration or lied at least to vicpresident pence, and, as a result, he did the right thing. he should have resigned, and he did resign. she does not blame president trump. and then you've got wood, that's the farmer there. he sees this in a broader political per speck testify, and it's basically as politics as usual, a fought is found this time with the trump administration, and the democrats and those who don't like donald trump are going to exploit it to the hilt just as many republicans did when they found things they didn't like when president obama was in office. they were on struxist, and what happens? nothing happens in washington.

and woods says he is sick and tired of just that. >> great to hear their perspectives. martin savage next hour on 360, the fallout from michael flynn, but the question, well, they keep coming. than with tylenol pm. advil pm combines the number one pain reliever with the number one sleep aid. gentle, non-habit forming advil pm. for a healing night's sleep.

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